Doyon 1
Anjel Doyon
Judith Simon
ENG 1510
Essay 2 blue draft
3 November 2018
Technology Changing the World as we Know it
Having the Internet at people’s fingertips in today’s world, anyone is capable of finding anything out in the matter of seconds. In the article “Google is Making us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr published in The Atlantic on August 2008 discusses how there are many advantages to society having this access, but also many disadvantages that we need to be reminded of. The Internet has rewired the way humans think. We have become careless in our learning and except answers instantly. While reading our brains have become so used to skimming over things. Technology is taking over the world and is being used for anything imaginable. Over time, people have become too dependent on the Internet and the things it provides us. Due to advancements in technology, we are constantly being introduced to new products. Technology is an amazing advancement in today’s world but, people need to realize the many negative effects it has on humans and how the mind functions.
Many people across the world use the Internet every single day. Does anyone take the time to think twice about the impact it is having on us physically? It has affected our brains and has completely rewired the way we think nowadays. People used to be more in depth with their thoughts and their own intelligence but now it’s all based on how the media is portrayed towards us and the many ways it persuades us to think. The Internet can be so one sided in making you believe something only based on the way they decided to present it. We are being steered in the direction to believe something based on how others want you to receive information. The Internet is set up in a way to make it possible to see, hear and believe things in the way they want you to view them. In Carrs article he proves this to his readers “As we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (Carr 10). We all still continue to research topics, but our brains don’t retain information the way it used to when peoples only option was to go to the library and study for countless hours. People are spending so much of their times hiding behind a screen and aren’t taking the time to think about the strain it is putting on our bodies, it is causing people to become delusional to the real world and making them miss out on opportunities. We are becoming brainwashed because we rely entirely for the Internet to be our only source of information. Also, it is generating less and less human interactions, its important and healthy to see people face to face. We are starting to not even have our own personal thoughts because we have become so influenced by the media we see every day through social media and the web.
With technology that has been advancing for many years and will always continue to become more advance than we could ever imagine. Nowadays when people are researching topics we have become so impatient and we have grown to have such a short attention span we wish to find answers within seconds. In today’s world we don’t care to retain information, we desire to find answers the fastest way possible and then forget what we were attempting at learning. People have become so careless in their learning that many tend to click on the first link that appears and don’t wish to continue research because they feel as if the first thing that pops up is all they need to gain knowledge on a specific topic. This isn’t something that is unfamiliar to anyone, in today’s day and age our generation has become so lazy and careless in thinking that it would be very unusual to find someone taking the time to go sit down at a library and read tons of books. In the article Carr brings this up many times and proves his point. “Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply without distraction, remains largely disengaged” (3). It’s hard for us to maintain staying focused as well as on task typically because we don’t feel drawn in. we usually try to memorize something until that knowledge is no longer needed. By us struggling to maintain being focused it causes us not to be productive with our use of time.
When people in our generation need to read an article or a book for class our brains have become so used to skimming over pretty much everything we read. Which is affecting many students academically or just on an everyday bases and the negative impact it is having on us today as a society is very noticeable. While skimming doesn’t take half as long as actual reading does, the knowledge gained from skimming isn’t nearly as beneficial as fully reading something. During the time people are using to skim people don’t tend to retain the information and most of the time don’t even comprehend the text and have to go back and read over the same thing again. As a society we struggle to take everything in that we are reading, and many people don’t even realize they are skimming because their bodies have become so custom to it that it occurs naturally. Carr states in his article how true this really is in today’s world “It is clear that users are not reading online in the tradition sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick win” (3). People want to achieve success but don’t want to put in the time, as a society we are lacking self-control to motivate ourselves to fully read something. The main problem when it comes to reading is we tend to think of it like a task, instead of viewing it as something enjoyable. Skimming impacts us as learners and takes away from us and the ability to learn something new and interesting all because we are too lazy to take the extra time to get the full meaning out of an article.
In today’s world with the technology we have it gives us access to anything imaginable. Laptops and phones allow us to have anything with the touch of our fingertips. All within the comfort of our homes we can shop for anything we need without having to leave our homes, which is taking away from the human interactions we all need. With technology being so advance in today’s world it is taking over many businesses because they aren’t needed anymore because of the development technology is reaching we have built in GPS in our phones. We have become so accustom to this lifestyle since it is all we have ever known, that it feels normal. But things have gotten out of hand we are at the point where we can go grocery shopping from at home and then have it dropped off at our homes, that isn’t normal. Many cable companies are losing business since it’s possible to find pretty much any show online and view it for free. In Carrs article he brings to his readers attention just how real this problem is becoming “The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computer system is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV” (5). The Internet is taking over the world we don’t need even need to leave our homes to find out information, it’s possible to find anything online. People don’t know how to live a life without hiding behind screens.
The Internet is a very easy and accessible way to share thoughts and ideas with today’s world. The concept of the internet is very similar to the concept of the printing press, and they both performed similar jobs which was producing a way to spread ideas and information. Obviously, the Internet is the quickest way to spread news with society and will only continue to get faster and more advance. The printing press used to be the most advance technology, but it could take up to weeks or sometimes months to spread information which wouldn’t be ideal in today’s world based on the fact that we have gotten to a point where we can find out new information within the matter of minutes. Both had a major impact on how we are able to communicate with others. As the Internet is continuously growing we are growing father from true values in life and what’s really important. Carr emphasizes many reasons how the Internet is taking away from our lives “Worries that style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiently” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that is emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press” (3). The Internet was invention as a way to share information faster and it does that but, it has gone beyond just that, and we are letting it get out of control. The printing press gave people the opportunity to expand their knowledge and read books and that’s something people used to desire to do, but nowadays people take advantage of the knowledge we have available to use and have become to lazy to care.
Overall Nicholas Carr has provided important information about the technology we have at our finger tips in today’s world. Carr exemplified the ways technology has caused many advances in today’s world but, people need to be fully aware of what it is doing to them physically. The Internet has completely changed the way our minds our programmed and has caused us to think differently. In today’s generation we don’t retain information for long periods of time, we remember it until we have something new that needs to be memorized for the time being. Over the course of many years are brains have become so custom to skimming over everything we read, we tend to do it naturally. Technology is always going to continue to grow and change and always will have an impact on us as humans and society. Since technology is advance it is taking away our needs for other programs we have available to us. As a society we need to recognize just how much we are letting the access of the Internet over power our lives and how it is impacting the way we think.
Work Cited
Carr Nicholas. “Is Google Making Us Stupid.” The Atlantic, August. 2008, pp.1-10
